Check your ego at the door.

I recently wrote a blog post for www.thesnarkyyogi.com about checking your ego at the door being the best advice a yoga instructor can give. Made me think that maybe it’s good advice for any door you are going to walk through.

Ego is not a bad thing. We all have one. It is the sense of self, a person’s self-esteem or sense of self-importance. It can be that someone has what we would consider good self-esteem. They are confident in themselves and their abilities. Someone can have an inflated ego or self-esteem that says they are better than everyone else. And then you can have the other extreme where a person has very low self-esteem and feels inferior to everyone.

As a nurse, it is important to check a lot of things at the door (as in, see what it is, and maybe leave it outside the door like a coat check). We check our prejudices, our judgements, our emotions, and our ego. Shedding the “coat” of assumptions and self-importance is what we do. (or need to do). After all, our patient has an ego too. As a nurse, your job is to care for the patient, to take care of their needs, whether those be physical, emotional, or mental. Not solve them, but help in the care of them. If our ego is in conflict with their ego then we have a problem. If we are aware of (have checked) our ego we can better avoid said issues.

Yoga has the Yamas ( non-violence, non-stealing, truthfulness, non-possessiveness, and fidelity) and Niyamas (cleanliness, contentment, discipline, self study and surrendering to a higher power) as rules or suggestions to live by, so does the practice of nursing. We are expected to interact with each patient in a professional manner while providing personalized care. Easy peasy, right? Wrong. Any time there are humans involved, the rules/suggestions have a way of flying out the window. That’s why it is important to have ways in which you can hold yourself accountable. Little steps in your work day to help you present yourself as a helper instead of hinderer in the healing process for your patients. One such step: Check your ego at the door.